1976 Ford XB Falcon GT Ex-Group C - Reader Ride

We caught up with James Golding and his 1976 Ford XB Falcon GT ex-group C racer at the 2016 Adelaide Motorsport Festival...

James Golding's '76 Ford XB Falcon GT ex-Group C

We've been spotting James Golding’s big and brutal Falcon around Adelaide since forever and wanted to learn more. "This was born an XB Falcon GT," James advises. "It was owned by Ron Dickson, who campaigned it at Bathurst in ’77 as the Pioneer ‘Big Ears’ car, then converted it to XC specs and ran it in ’78 under Thomson Ford."

That blew our minds, but it gets better. "When I bought it in 1991, it had never been registered!" says James, "In 2000, I took it to Lance Walker for a roll cage, then I got defected!" he adds, laughing.

The defect was enough to trigger a full rebuild, where the Thomson livery was replicated in deference to the history of the car. But this Falcon is a racer, not a museum piece.

"It now runs a 378 Cleveland with twin turbochargers; it puts out 820 horsepower at the tyres. That’s the most it does with the injectors that are in it."

James proudly states that it’s fully engineered with the turbos, four-link rear and six-speed T56 dog box. Some cars should be kept original, but the charm of this racecar is that it’s never stopped developing; James has certainly seen to that!